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Pooh Jeter carried Ukraine to an 82-75 victory over Serbia on Friday and revived his team's hopes of making the quarter-finals of the European basketball championships.

The American-born point guard scored 20 points and made several key baskets with the game on the line as Ukraine bounced back from a 34-point loss to Latvia.

"The team effort was what won the game for us," said Jeter, who is the brother of U.S. sprinter Carmelita Jeter. "Latvia really punched us and caught us off-balance. But going against a powerhouse like Serbia we knew that we could win it. Everybody else doubted us. Everybody else counted us out. But we as a team believed that we could get this win."

Maxym Korniyenko added 21 points and had eight rebounds for Ukraine.

Earlier, Lithuania moved closer to a spot in the quarter-finals with an 86-67 win over 0-4 Belgium. In the late match, France cruised past Latvia 102-91.

Serbia is now 3-1 and Ukraine 2-2. Serbia plays France and Ukraine meets Lithuania in their final second-round games.

France is also 3-1 while Latvia fell to 2-2.

Alexis Ajinca scored 25 points for France, which led by as many as 22 before slowing down in the last quarter to allow Latvia to come within nine. But Tony Parker kept the gap safe to finish with 23 points, while Nicolas Batum added 19 and 10 rebounds.

"We controlled the game but they never gave up," Ajinca said.

Dairis Bertans led all scorers by getting 28 for Latvia.

"We trailed by 20 at halftime and against a team such as France it's hard to come back from such a margin," Latvia guard Janis Blums said. "But we are still alive."

Jeter hit a three-pointer to end the third quarter with a nine-point Ukraine lead, which increased to 11 at the start of the fourth.

With Serbia trying to close the gap, Jeter sank two consecutive three-pointers, made a jumper and stole the ball before making one of two free throws. That left Ukraine up by eight with 1:05 on the clock and although Nemanja Bjelica made a three, Ukraine held on to win.

"We knew that if we wanted to win we had to play our best game at both ends of the court," Ukraine coach Mike Fratello said. "Today we had the energy and the effort and we came back from the embarrassment against Latvia."

Toronto Raptors centre Jonas Valanciunas scored 12 points and grabbed 10 rebounds to lead Lithuania, which improved to 3-1 in the second round and looks likely to clinch one of the top four places in its group.

'We used our big guys real well'

"We used our big guys real well and that was the key," said Lithuania power forward Mindaugas Kuzminskas, who added 12 points and eight rebounds.

Jonathan Tabu led Belgium with 15 points.

Lithuania pulled down 13 more rebounds than Belgium and scored 40 points in the paint against 22 for the Belgians.

"We missed some open shots at the beginning but we knew the scoring would come," Lithuania coach Jonas Kazlauskas said.